Текст книги "Dance of the Bones"

Автор книги: J. A. Jance

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Leo flipped the two packs he was carrying into the bed of the truck, then went straight to the radio. “He’s home,” Leo said a moment later. “Delia said he just woke up and scared her to death because she had no idea he was there. He was in his bedroom with the door closed. We didn’t bother checking his room when we got home because he wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Sick with relief, Lani leaned against the passenger door. Gradually her legs seemed to give way beneath her. She slid slowly down onto her haunches until she was sitting propped on the Tundra’s narrow running board.

Leo came around to where she was sitting. “Sorry,” he said. “He’s a teenager and a boy. I shouldn’t have blamed you. Come on. Let’s get back.”

Lani stood up and tossed her own pack into the truck. “There’s one more thing we need to do,” she said when she again felt capable of speech.

“What’s that?”

“I want to stop by the charco.”

“What charco?” Leo asked.

“That one,” she said, nodding down the mountainside.

“Rattlesnake Skull?” he asked. “How come? People say that place is haunted.”

Lani knew that all too well, and one of the haunting spirits was no doubt the soul of Gabe’s murdered second cousin, Gina Antone, but Lani didn’t feel like going into any of that right then.

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” she said. “I’m curious about something.”

“Don’t they always say curiosity killed the cat?” Leo said, letting go of his anger and giving her one of his easy grins.

“Maybe so,” Lani said. “But I still want to go. You can stay in the truck if you want. I can hike in and out.”

“And let you call me a ’fraidy cat?” Leo replied. “No way.”

When they neared the charco, Lani directed him to drive past the turnoff and stop on the shoulder of the road.

As they climbed out of the truck, Leo shot her a questioning look. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You look like something’s wrong.”

“I’m not sure,” Lani said. “Let’s wait and see. I want to follow the tracks.”

Lani had picked up some skill as a tracker from her husband, who had learned that ancient art from his grandfather Micah. Using what Dan had taught her, Lani walked along the road until she saw a place where a single set of tire tracks led off into the brush. A few feet beyond that, she saw evidence of what looked like a struggle and signs of several people walking off into the brush.

“We’ll go this way,” she said, “but stay to the side of the tire tracks and of the footprints, too.”

Just then a shadow passed overhead. Lani looked skyward and saw a single buzzard circling high above them. The morning sun may have been warm, but a chill passed through her body. Having Nuwiopa show up at a time like this was always a bad sign. Buzzards meant death, and the bodies weren’t hard to find.

They lay just beyond a parked blue Jeep Cherokee, one Lani suspected might belong to one of the José brothers. The two victims were clearly male. Both bodies had been shredded by bullets. Their hands were bound in front of them with tie wraps, and their heads were covered by paper grocery bags. Both were secured to the base of a nearby cottonwood tree by lengths of cable that looked like those used to lock down bicycles.

Once Lani spotted the bodies, there was no reason to go any closer. It was clear from the cloud of swarming flies that both victims were dead. She stopped in her tracks so abruptly that Leo literally plowed into her from behind. He grabbed her with both arms to keep her from pitching forward and then was startled when she turned in his arms, buried her head in his ample chest, and wept. They stood like that for several moments, with Leo awkwardly patting her shoulder and trying to comfort her.

Leo probably thought Lani was horrified at being confronted by those two bloodied and mangled bodies, but that wasn’t it at all. She was weeping in gratitude because neither of the dead victims was Gabe. He was home and safe. Right then, that was all that mattered.

At last she straightened up, wiping her nose and eyes on her shirtsleeve. “I’m okay now,” she said.

Letting go of her, Leo started toward the bodies.

“No,” she said, grasping his arm. “Leave them.”

“But shouldn’t we at least check on them?”

Lani shook her head. “This is a crime scene,” she said. “I can see from here that they’re both dead. There’s nothing we can do for them, except call the cops.”

CHAPTER 14

BIG MAN AND HIS FRIENDS came to the house. They called out to the brother, and he came out. Everybody aimed their arrows at him, but as the arrows flew, Brother jumped in the air. None of the arrows hit him. The people laughed at him and asked him where his feathers were. They told him he should have wings.

But when Brother came back to earth, the people noticed that the earth trembled under his feet. Three times the people shot their arrows at Brother, and three times, when he came down, the ground shook.

The fourth time the people shot their arrows, Brother jumped into the sky, but this time he did not come down.

And so, nawoj, my friend, when you are in the land of the Desert People and look toward the Eastern Sky early in the morning, you will see Beautiful Girl, smiling at you from the sky. The Tohono O’odham call her Mahsig Hu’u—Morning Star.

And sometimes—not often—when you feel the earth tremble, the Milgahn—the Anglos—may call it an earthquake, but you and I will know that it is only Beautiful Girl’s brother who has come back to visit.

WHEN BRANDON WALKER OPENED HIS eyes, Diana was standing in the doorway of the bedroom with a cup of coffee in hand. “Up and at ’em, lazybones,” she said. “You said you’d be driving Miss Daisy today, and if we want to get to the Second Street garage in time to find a parking place, you’d better get a move on.”

Brandon turned over and stared blearily at the clock. It said 8:30.

“What time’s your first panel?”

“Ten of the A.M., so we need to head out soon.”

Brandon scrambled out of bed, shaved, showered, and dressed. As he slipped his car keys into his jacket pocket—the same jacket he’d worn to the dinner the night before—his fingers encountered the business card Oliver Glassman had given him. Brandon pulled it out and looked at it. He had spent the better part of the night mulling over his own involvement with John Lassiter. Before he got any more deeply involved and before he brought TLC into play, he needed a whole lot more information.

Dropping the card back into his pocket, he went to the kitchen in search of a second cup of coffee.

“By the way,” Diana said, “my publicist flew in last night. She’ll be meeting us at the first venue, and she’s willing to hang with me all day. So if you feel like doing something else instead of showing up at all the panels and signings, that would be fine, as long as you’re close enough to come get me when I’m done.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Diana said with a laugh. “You go to enough of these events that you could probably do a credible job of answering all the questions I’m likely to be asked. So go do whatever you need to do. Consider it your reward for showing up for the cattle call last night.”

“Fair enough,” Brandon agreed. “Sounds good.”

Even though he was only dropping Diana off, getting to the campus was still a challenge. Traffic on Speedway was gridlocked with people trying to turn into the campus while herds of pedestrians, oblivious to the lights, blocked the way. Brandon drove into the bookstore turnaround with bare minutes to spare before Diana’s first scheduled appearance.

“I’ll pick you up right here whenever you call,” he said. With an unexpected free day ahead of him, Brandon headed for the Arizona Inn to treat himself to a leisurely breakfast. Knowing he might need to use the phone, he asked for his food to be served in the bar.

While waiting, he pulled out Ollie Junior’s card. Glassman the younger was a defense attorney. Clients who found themselves in the clink would need to be able to reach him. Brandon read through the list of phone numbers on the card and dialed the one listed as a cell. Not surprisingly, he was routed to an answering service, but at least it was a living, breathing person rather than a machine.

Brandon told the woman who he was and why he was calling. Oliver Glassman Junior called him back before Brandon finished the last bite of his whole wheat toast.

“I’m surprised you called,” Oliver Glassman Junior said. “When John Lassiter said he wanted to talk to you, I didn’t figure he had a chance in hell.”

“He may not still,” Brandon answered. “Before I go wading into any of this, Mr. Glassman, I want some information.”

“Call me Junior. What kind of information do you have in mind?”

“If you can talk to me about this without violating client confidentiality, please tell me what exactly Justice for All came up with,” Brandon requested. “They must have found something serious, or they wouldn’t have been able to negotiate a deal.”

“Don’t worry about the confidentiality issue,” Junior answered. “I have John Lassiter’s signed permission to bring you on board. As to what they found? Prosecutorial misconduct.”

“What kind?”

“It turns out the prosecutor had a prior relationship with one of the prosecution witnesses. He should have recused himself, but he didn’t.”

“Which witness?” Brandon asked. “And what kind of relationship?”

“A woman named Ava Hanover, at least that was her name at the time of John Lassiter’s first trial, but she’s Ava Richland now. Back in the day, while she was still Ava Martin and working for an escort service, she and a newbie prosecutor named Eric Tuttle had a little extramarital fling. He was married at the time. She wasn’t. Years later, when Ava’s name came up on the witness list in the case, Tuttle should have recused himself—both times—but he didn’t.”

At the time of John Lassiter’s trials, Brandon had found it puzzling that the prosecutor had gone for broke both times. Brandon was, after all, the primary investigator on the case—the lead detective for much of it by virtue of being the only detective. The evidence, such as it was, was entirely circumstantial. To his way of thinking, Lassiter should have been charged with second-degree homicide rather than murder in the first degree. Now it all made sense, because by the time John Lassiter went to trial, Eric Tuttle had been the duly elected county attorney.

“All this happened a long time ago. How exactly did Justice for All find out about it?” Brandon asked.

“They do data mining, at least that’s how Rosalie Whittier explained it to me.”

“Who’s Rosalie Whittier?”

“JFA’s lead attorney on the John Lassiter case. Somehow JFA tracked down a long out-of-print book called Lawmen Gone Bad. Hardly anybody’s read it—had a print run of five hundred copies or so—but it’s a tell-all book about a previous sheriff, a guy named DuShane. Ever hear of him?”

Brandon Walker remembered Jack DuShane, all right. Sheriff DuShane had been as corrupt as they come. He still remembered the bumper stickers that had blossomed around town at the time. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF, they said. GET A MASSAGE. That may have been a joke, but unfortunately, it was also all too true. DuShane’s involvement with the massage parlor/escort service industry was one of the things that had finally propelled Brandon into running for office against the man and eventually defeating him.

“I know the name well,” Brandon said aloud. “DuShane was my boss at one time, but I never heard about the book. You say it’s a tell-all?”

“I haven’t seen it, but that’s what I’m told.”

“Why haven’t I heard about it, then? A book exposing Jack DuShane’s carryings-on should have been big news around here.”

“That’s what makes all this so interesting,” Junior said. “As far as I can tell, the book never saw the light of day. The entire first printing was sold to what was most likely a single buyer who destroyed all the copies.”

“What single buyer?”

“No ID on the buyer, but I have a pretty good idea of who it might have been.”

So did Brandon Walker. Most likely Sheriff DuShane himself, now retired and living the good life in Palm Springs.

“At any rate, there was never a second printing,” Junior continued. “Word is, the author made a good piece of change by just going away and keeping his mouth shut.”

“Not blackmail, then,” Brandon suggested. “More like hush money.”

“Correct.”

“How did JFA find a copy?”

“Somebody gave them access to an uncorrected proof. Don’t ask me how, but they did, and that’s where they came up with the connection between Ava Martin and Eric Tuttle. He wasn’t the county attorney at the time, but he and DuShane were evidently good buds.”

Who played poker together for years, Brandon thought. If there had ever been a doubt in Brandon’s mind about looking into John Lassiter’s case, that was the moment it went away.

“Okay,” Brandon said aloud, “based on all that, JFA comes in and negotiates a deal that, as I understand it, Lassiter no longer wants.”

“He never wanted it to begin with,” Junior said. “And he isn’t the one who brought JFA into the deal. The person responsible for that would be his daughter, Amanda Wasser.”

“Back then I had no idea he had a daughter.”

“His girlfriend was expecting at the time he was arrested. The baby was born right after he went to prison for life without. He signed away his parental rights, and the mother gave the baby up for adoption at birth. Amanda had a health issue in her late twenties and came looking for her biological parents. By the time she did that, her birth mother was dead and you already know about John.”

“This daughter, Amanda Wasser, where is she?”

“Right here in Tucson. Turns out she’s lived here all her life. She works for the university—at the library, I believe. She’s probably off this week since it’s spring break, but I doubt she’s out of town. I don’t believe she travels very much. As I said, she has health issues.”

“What kind of health issues?”

“The same thing her father has—MS. I understand it’s hereditary.”

“Do you have a phone number for her?”

“Sure thing. Let me find it.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“In a condo development off Speedway on the far side of Wilmot, the one with the dying golf course.”

It took a few moments before Junior dug up Amanda’s address and phone number. “Thanks,” Brandon said. “Now, could you do one more thing?”

“What’s that?”

“Let John Lassiter know that I’ll try to come see him, if not tomorrow then maybe the next day.”

“Good-o,” Junior Glassman replied. “I’ll get a message through to him right away. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear you’re on board.”

SITTING IN LEO’S TRUCK, LANI dialed 911. After that, it was simply a matter of seeing who would arrive first, Law and Order—the tribal police—or someone from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. While they waited, Lani held her phone for a time, dreading and delaying the call she needed to make. Finally she pressed the button.

“Good morning,” Dan Pardee said cheerfully. “We’re having breakfast and wondering when we’d hear from you. Since the cat’s away, I made blueberry pancakes. Tell Mom how you like them.”

“Yummy,” she heard Micah crow in the background.

Lani sighed. This was not a conversation she could have on speaker with Angie and Micah hanging on her every word.

“I need to talk to you in private.”

“Sure,” Dan said. “Just a sec.” Lani heard the legs of his chair scrape on the floor. Then a moment later, a door slammed.

“I’m outside now,” he said, turning off the speaker. “I can tell from your voice that something’s wrong. What is it?”

“Gabe is fine, and so am I,” she said hurriedly, “but there was a shooting down by Rattlesnake Skull charco early this morning. It woke me up. When Leo came to get me, I had him stop and check. We found two dead men lying by the charco. Right now we’re waiting for the cops to arrive.”

“Wait,” Dan said. “You said Leo came to pick you up. Where’s Gabe?”

“We had an argument,” Lani admitted. “He stormed off the mountain, but don’t worry. He’s okay.”

“Don’t worry? Are you kidding? This whole campout idea was all about helping him, and you’re telling me the little shit went off and left you out there on your own?”

Hearing the anger in Dan’s voice, Lani glanced toward Leo, who was sitting stolidly in the driver’s seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“It was fine,” Lani said, grateful her phone wasn’t on speaker, either. “I’m fine.”

An uncomfortable silence passed between Lani and Dan. The next admission would be the worst one, because of Dan’s words of warning the day before.

“The bad guys were firing automatic weapons,” she said finally. “I had my Glock, but up against whatever they were firing, it wouldn’t have been any more effective than a slingshot. You have every right to say I told you so, and plenty of reason to rub my nose in it all you want.”

There was another period of silence before Dan asked, “Any idea who the victims are?”

“We found a vehicle that might belong to one of the José boys, but Leo and I backed off without getting close enough to examine the bodies. Both victims had grocery bags over their heads.”

“Figures,” Dan muttered. “I heard Max was involved in some kind of smuggling operation.”

A cloud of dust bloomed farther down the road as a vehicle turned off the highway and sped toward them, red lights flashing.

“Gotta go,” Lani said hurriedly. “The cops just showed up. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a while,” Dan said. “Don’t worry. I’ll hold down the fort here. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

CHAPTER 15

YOU WILL REMEMBER, NAWOJ, MY friend, that after I’itoi divided the water and saved the Tohono O’odham, some of the Bad People—PaDaj O’odham—escaped and went to live in the South. Now these bad people were very lazy—too lazy to plant their own fields. They would come to the lands of the Desert People and steal their crops—their wheat and corn, their pumpkins and melons. Each time they came, the Tohono O’odham fought the Bad People and drove them away, but after a while when the food was gone and the Bad People were hungry, they would come again.

By now the Tohono O’odham knew that they should put guards in their fields to protect their crops. One day near the village of Gurli Put Vo—Dead Man’s Pond—which the Milgahn call San Miguel, the corn was ready to harvest. That morning Hawani—Crow—was sitting in a tree and saw the Bad People coming up out of the ground. Soon they were cutting down all the corn. Crow was so astonished that he called “Caw, Caw, Caw!” The people in the village heard Crow’s warning. They came running and drove the Bad People away.

That is why the Tohono O’odham are always kind to Thah O’odham—the Flying People—and never let them go hungry or thirsty, because Crow sounded the alarm.

LANI WAS BOTH RELIEVED AND a little disappointed when the first officer to arrive on the scene was one of the Shadow Wolves shift supervisors, Henry Rojas. She was disappointed because she wanted to get through whatever interviewing she needed to do with the investigating officers. But she was also relieved because Henry was someone she knew. He was a Navajo who hailed from New Mexico, while his wife, Lucy, was a Tohono O’odham nurse who worked at the Sells Indian Hospital. Lani knew them both because they lived in the hospital housing complex.

“I understand there’s been a homicide,” Henry said.

“Two, actually,” Lani corrected.

It was hardly surprising that a Border Patrol vehicle was the first to arrive. Law enforcement agencies working on the reservation had the ability to monitor one another’s radio traffic. Due to the long distances involved, if an officer got into some kind of trouble, people from other agencies who happened to be in the area could respond and render assistance.

“Any idea who the victims are?”

“There’s a vehicle that may belong to one of the José brothers from Sells,” Lani answered, “but that’s just a guess on my part. We didn’t get close to the victims to attempt an identification because we didn’t want to disturb the crime scene. Instead, we called it in and came here to wait.”

“What made you even think to look there?” Henry asked.

“I heard gunshots during the night,” Lani said. “Leo’s son, Gabe, and I were camping out up on Kitt Peak. The shots seemed to be coming from somewhere down here, so we stopped to check.”

Henry looked questioningly at the backseat.

“Gabe’s not here,” Lani explained. “He got his nose out of joint and went home during the night.”

“Walked?”

Lani nodded.

“Stubborn kid,” Henry observed.

“You can say that again,” Leo added.

“Whereabouts are the victims?”

Leo gestured with his head. “Over there,” he said, “by the charco.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

“It’s a crime scene,” Lani said, “but it’s not my call.”

The next several vehicles arrived in a caravan. Out in front was a black Suburban that screamed FBI and was FBI. Two agents, one male and one female, emerged from that car and came forward, credentials in hand, to introduce themselves—Agents Angelica Howell and Joseph Armstrong. Behind them was a van belonging to the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office. Next came a van with a Pima County Sheriff’s Department logo on the door and a four-man CSI team inside. At the very end of the line was a sedan belonging to Law and Order, the Tohono O’odham tribal police.

Henry reappeared, motioned for the others to follow, and then led the group of investigators off toward the charco. Leo and Lani stayed where they were.

“Are they going to want to question Gabe?” Leo asked.

“Probably,” Lani answered. “He left long enough before it happened that I doubt he saw or heard anything, but they’ll probably want to check to be sure.”

“How long is this going to take?”

Lani sighed. “Probably a long time,” she said resignedly. “I don’t think either one of us is going to make it home in time for lunch.”

Leo nodded. “I’d better call the garage and let them know that I won’t be in until later.”

WHEN BRANDON CALLED THE NUMBER Junior had given him, Amanda Wasser was home and answered the phone.

Her response when he introduced himself surprised him. “Brandon Walker,” she said. “I believe I recognize the name. Aren’t you the original arresting officer, the one who took my father into custody?”

“Yes,” Brandon admitted. “That was me.”

“So what can I do for you, Mr. Walker?”

“John Lassiter reached out to me through his attorney, Oliver Glassman Junior. I volunteer with an organization called TLC, The Last Chance. We follow up on cold cases. Your father claims he wants TLC to look into Amos Warren’s death, and he asked for me in particular.”

Brandon more than half expected Amanda would hang up on him. “Thank God,” she whispered into the phone. “Finally.”

“What do you mean finally?”

“JFA was happy to go after the prosecutorial misconduct angle, but I don’t think any of them ever really believed my father was innocent. Of course, with him in prison, no one in law enforcement is interested in revisiting the case, either. Where are you? I mean, are you here in town?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you stop by?”

Without waiting for a second invitation, Brandon drove straight there. The entrance to the development, not exactly a gated community, was half a mile beyond Wilmot on Speedway. Brandon understood enough about golf to know that courses are supposed to be green. That wasn’t true here. The greens themselves were green, but that was all. Brandon knew that the cost of water had done in more than one Tucson area golf course, but the crazed golf-cart-driving players on this one didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the conditions on the course.

When he reached the address, he found a single-level unit whose front yard had been turned into a bricked patio surrounded by gaily colored pots on metal stands. Each pot overflowed with a bouquet of colorfully blooming flowers. Amanda Wasser, seated on a bright red scooter, was parked beside one of them. Wearing a sun hat and gardening gloves, she was busily deadheading flowers.

“You must be Brandon Walker,” she said with a smile as she stripped off her gloves and held out a hand. “Welcome to my raised garden. Ordinary raised beds don’t work for me anymore. I need something higher that gives me access both front and back. When I’m feeling well enough, I like to work the pots myself. When I’m not well enough, I have a yardman. Won’t you have a seat? Would you care for coffee?”

“No thanks on the coffee,” Brandon said, taking a seat at a patio table with a fully unfurled umbrella. Next to the umbrella was a closed banker’s box. “Just had some. What I’d really like is to know about your father.”

“John Lassiter is my birth father,” Amanda corrected. With that, she tossed her gloves into the scooter’s basket, then rode over to join him at the table. “I consider the man who raised me to be my father. By the way, my adoptive parents are both deceased,” she added. “They died several years ago and only months apart. My birth mother perished in a car wreck, so as far as relatives are concerned, John Lassiter is the last of the Mohicans.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Only what’s in public records and court records,” she said. “I know that he’s in prison for murder and that he has MS. That’s one thing we have in common—MS. It’s hereditary; it’s also what started me off on the search for my birth parents in the first place. I’d been having symptoms, and my doctors suggested that I track down my birth family’s medical history. I had always known I was adopted, but it came as a big surprise to me to learn that my birth father was in prison just up the road.”

“You grew up in Tucson, then?”

Amanda nodded. “I’m guessing that’s why my parents kept that information from me—because Florence isn’t very far from here. But yes, I’ve lived in Tucson all my life. I attended Palo Verde High School and the University of Arizona. I’m still there by the way—at the U of A. I’m a reference librarian in the main library.”

“I understand from Mr. Glassman that you’re the one who brought JFA into the game. Did your father ask you to do that?”

She laughed at that, but it was laughter without humor. “Hardly,” she said. “I did that all on my own. Besides, when would he have asked? I’ve never met the man. He’s in prison for life without parole, and he refuses to allow me to visit.”

Brandon was taken aback. “You’ve never met him?”

“Not once.”

“Then why did you go to the trouble of enlisting JFA’s help?”

“I already answered that. John Lassiter is my last living relative—the only one. If I can get him released from prison, maybe I’ll have a chance to get to know him.”

“How did all this come about then?”

Amanda shrugged. “I’m a librarian. What can I tell you? When I learned who my birth father was and he then refused to see me, I started doing what librarians do best—research. I went back through newspaper accounts of everything I could find related to Amos Warren’s homicide and the resulting criminal trials. I also learned everything I could about John Lassiter and his circle of acquaintances.” She reached over, removed the top from the box, extracted a single item—a book—and moved the box in Brandon’s direction. “This contains hard copies of everything I found. I’ve made digital copies as well.”

Peering inside, Brandon saw that the box was jammed with files.

“This is the only thing for which I don’t have a digitized copy.”

She handed him the book. It was a paperback with a plain gold cover. The only words on the cover were Lawmen Gone Bad, by Randall Hardy. Uncorrected proof.

“I thought that book was never published?” Brandon asked.

“It was, but only just. It was printed, but all the copies were bought up before they were shipped to the stores. It was pulled prior to publication,” Amanda explained. “Evidently pressure was brought to bear, and the copies that had been printed were shredded. This copy—a galley copy—survived. When I was doing my research, I read the complete papers from beginning to end. Somewhere along the way I stumbled on an item that mentioned Mr. Hardy was working on the book. I made a note of it in case it might be related. When I went looking for it later and could locate nothing about it, I tracked down Mr. Hardy himself.

“He was still living here in town at the time. He’d had several other books published after the first one disappeared. I made an appointment with him on the basis of asking for his papers to be donated to Special Collections at the U of A library. He seemed cordial enough and said I was welcome to what he had. When I made the mistake of asking about Lawmen in particular, he went ballistic. He said he’d burned everything that had anything to do with that ‘goddamned book,’ quote unquote, and that he wished he’d never written it.”

“Slight overreaction?” Brandon asked.

Amanda nodded. “That sent me looking. The publisher was a local outfit that went out of business shortly after all this happened. That piqued my curiosity, too. I wondered if the two were related, and that sent me off on a search for the book itself. The book’s initial print run was small, so there weren’t many review copies printed either—twenty to fifty at most. Fortunately for me, there are people out in the world of dead tree books who specialize in collecting review copies. I paid a lot of money for this one, but that’s where I found the connections between the man who prosecuted John Lassiter and sent him to prison and John’s onetime girlfriend—Ava Martin.”

“I understand Jack DuShane is in here, too?”

Amanda nodded. “He’s there as one of the bad guys. By the way,” she added, “you’re notably absent.”

“Sheriff DuShane and I were never on the best of terms.”

“When I read the book, I realized that all those folks—the sheriff, the prosecutor, the people running the call girls and the massage parties—were thick as thieves, and I think they all joined forces to pin Amos Warren’s homicide on John Lassiter. He was a guy with no connections, which made him an easy target. I went to the sheriff’s department and tried to get someone to take a look at all this with a view to reopening the case.”

“And you got nowhere?”

“Correct, but maybe you’ll have better luck.”